🚀 go-pugleaf

I suppose it's worth mentioning a couple of caveats about brain
imaging technology as well, since we keep going back to that for proof
of Heidi's imaginitive perceptions. Current methods like fMRI, CAT,
PET, etc, are very clever ways of turning empirical and measurable
changes in the physical properties of our brains into images for us.
For example, fMRI devices measure the differences in oxygenated blood,
which implies changes in bloodflow in certain areas and less in
others. THEN, they perform pattern recognition algortihms on this raw
data and provide a filter and then interpret their operations with
pretty visualization techniques to show which areas account for some
threshold of bloodflow activity.

Even fMRI specialists will tell you that thus far, it is not yet
provable to show that these techniques really accurately correlate
with brain activity. It is highly likely that there are close
similiarties to what fMRIs find and what is really going in in the
brain, but there may be a lot we are missing. For instance, some
scientists at fMRI center at UCSD have discovered that fMRI machines
have been, for years, picking up blood flow and changes in oxygenation
within the blood vessels themselves, and not always in the vessels'
interface with the brain areas. They showed that it's possible that a
lot of data that localized brain functions were really showing
bloodflow in the branching-offs of the Carotid artery. I don't have
alink for the paper for you guys- I saw a presentation of this data at
the fMRI center.

Heidi,
   I respect your preserverence in your discussion about feeling your
brain energy. But, you haven't addressed my (defeating) counter point
that THERE ARE NO SENSORY RECEPTORS IN YOUR BRAIN. Your brain can only
interact with sensation through receptors. All information entering
through the brain from receptors come into the brain in the same way
(whether it be light-induced, or sound-induced, or pressure induced).

   Now, because of our cortex, we can create imaginations, which are
top-down activity in the brain that play out events. This IS REAL
activity. For instance, if I talk to my friend, and then I imagine
talking to my friend, brain activity in many areas will look very
similar. But, you can't actually feel and take in sensory information
from your imagination. It is top-down, not bottom-up processing. Now,
if you want to say that it is easy for yourself to imagine feeling
your brain activity- then kudos to you! It's great that you have such
a visceral imagination- most people don't. But, you cannot go on
saying that you are actually sensing changes in your brain activity
because this is very impossible.